How to get your vitamin D level tested.

This post is a long time coming but it is for a good reason! I actually was able to have a zoom coaching session with Dr. Gominak. It was very cool and I plan to write a blog post about it. If you interested in what they are like from a client perspective, that will be a post for you. I learned quite a bit about vitamin D testing during our zoom. Therefore this blog post is based on the information she told me.

Method One - Finger Stick Blood Drop

I have not tried this method so this is just a description of the test. You can buy the kits online from various places. I know that the Vitamin D Council website sells them. Look around and see where you can get the best price. They do produce accurate results. The other nice thing about doing it this way is not having to go to a lab for a blood draw.

There are a couple of minor drawbacks from this style. The first is doing the test right. I haven’t tried it so I can’t comment too much on how hard they are. Getting a drop of blood on a patch might be a little tricky but perhaps not. The other thing that could be a drawback is the time to get your result. You have to have the kit mailed to you. Then you have to do the test and mail it back. They then have to process and post the results. I am not sure how long that might take but certainly a little slower than an lab draw.

Method Two - Lab Draw

I have done it this way four times now and it is really easy if you are close to a lab. As I mentioned in my last post Vitamin D and Sleep - Month 2, my insurance paid for the first test. For the other 3 tests, I have used an online testing service. This was easier than I expected. You find the vitamin D test in their list of tests. You pick the lab that you want to go to. The two big ones I have seen are LabCorp and Qwest. Qwest lab is just down the street so I use them. You add the test to your cart and pay with a credit card. Once you complete the transaction, you print up a page that is a prepaid lab requistion. You take that paper down to the lab and they draw your blood without having to pay anything at the time of the draw. In 3 to 4 days, you will get an email from the online testing service that your result is back. Log in to see your number. It’s that easy.

There are quite a few online testing services. It also turns out that there are a couple of different testing methods. Immunoassay and LC-MS/MS. That is about where my knowledge of the difference ends. If you want to deep dive on this, here is a study on the two. The cheapest online vitamin D test I could find uses the LC-MS/MS method which appears to be the most accurate of the two. Check out Ulta Labs. Search for the CardioIQ Vitamin D test for $41 at the time of this post. There is a $8 draw fee for a total of $49. I got my blood draw done on Monday and the result was ready Thursday morning.

Up next is a post on Vitamin D and month 3!

David Marcu